In personal history Hagar is an example or illustration (we could scarcely say a type) of the dealings of divine grace with a helpless and despairing sinner. She is found, partially by reason of her own fault, and partially by injustice and misfortune, in a position of the utmost misery and danger, yet remembered and seen by a God of compassion; she is dying of thirst, yet there is a well of springing water at her side; she does not seem to remember God nor seek Him, but He sends His angel with the gracious inquiry, “What aileth thee, Hagar? Arise.” She is blind to the presence of the means of salvation, until “God OPENED HER EYES AND SHE SAW a well of water.” She is not only saved from suffering and death but is endowed (in her son) with future possessions and blessings, and moreover receives directions for her personal right conduct.
[Though directions are given, and approved by God, “to cast out the bondwoman,” yet He protects her when thus cast out: so we see God protecting the legal system though He warns us against harboring it, saying “the law is holy; and the commandment is holy, and just, and good."]
The well in the desert of Beersheba was there before the poor woman had her eyes opened to see it. God had provided it just where it would be needed, and He guided her to it and gave her sight to behold it. All that she had to do was to take (when “the water was spent in the bottle” —every human resource had failed), what God's foreseeing grace had placed there for her salvation. A well represents to us the smitten Christ yielding the Holy Ghost: the ground is wounded by man, and in a noble revenge—like that “noble tree that is wounded when it gives the balm,” —pours forth to him the water of life and refreshment. Hence Moses was told to smite the rock (Ex. 17) at Massah and the water streamed forth: “that rock was Christ.”
At the well of Sychar, another poor sinful and hopeless woman is found sitting with sightless eyes—until those eyes are divinely opened—beside the true spiritual Spring, who could say “If thou knewest.....Who it is thou would have asked of Him and He would have given thee living water.” She would have drawn water out of the well of salvation, the true well, to which Israel in the coming day shall sing “Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it: the princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it"! Passing through the valley of tears, they shall find in it a well.
A writer of some authority says that “you cannot get water from a well without first pouring some in.” Probably he means a pump, for just the reverse is true of the well: it returns water for wounding, it gives freely, because of its noble nature. There is an ancient saying, “You are thinking of Parmenio, I of Alexander,” referring to an utterance of that king's in giving a munificent award: that is, you are thinking of what Parmenio deserves, but I am thinking of what is befitting the dignity and bounty of Alexander to bestow. If we think of our deserts, then our claims are small indeed, but if we think of the affluence and bounty of the Giver, our expectations are enlarged to apprehend infinite and eternal endowments “without money and without price.” (Concluded from p 320)